Dinosaur dung stolen from Natural History Museum

Thieves stole a lump of fossilised dinosaur dung from the Natural History Museum in London, it has been revealed.

When staff at the Natural History Museum noticed that one of their exhibits had disappeared, it seemed reminiscent of the 1970s comedy film One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing.

The thieves, however, must have been disappointed when they realised that what they had smuggled out was not a valuable piece of dinosaur skeleton but a piece of 65-million-year-old fossilised dung.

Details of the theft have been revealed for the first time in a list of specimens that have been stolen or lost from the London museum's collection over the past five years.

Among the other items taken thieves were 167 scarab beetles originating from South America, and a centipede. Another 25 scarab beetles were stolen from a car in Vienna while they were on loan to a museum in the city.